First let me
thank you for inviting me to Sarnia-Lambton. It’s my first visit, and although
I was surprised to be invited to the Symposium, I wasn’t surprised that there is
homelessness and concerns about adequate affordable housing here in Sarnia-Lambton.

Let me begin
with a disclaimer. I knew essentially nothing about Sarnia or the region. This
is the primary reason I’m here – so that I can learn more about your community’s
situation vis-à-vis housing and homelessness.

But I did a
little bit of research about you. First of all, I thought, what an interesting
word ‘Sarnia’, so I thought I’d check out its origins because maybe it was a
First Nations word that meant something beautiful like ‘home’, but I learned
that it’s the Latin name for a place called Guernsey in the Channel Islands. So
maybe Sarnia was called Sarnia because early settlers were homesick? I still
wonder what the origins of Lambton are?

I learned you
have a lot of fun here. You were the kissing capital of the world until 2003
when Manila in the Philippines surpassed your record!

You are
probably most famous for the interviews, outside the Taco Bell, in the Michael
Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine, and what a
great job your Mayor Bradley did, inviting Moore to become an honorary citizen.

Well, I’m sure I’ll know quite a bit more about Sarnia before I
leave – or at least I better.

Let me begin
by telling you a bit about where I come from.

I grew up in
small town Ontario, in Cobourg and later in Kingston. Growing up, I certainly
never imagined I would become a street nurse, let alone that there would be such
an explosion of homelessness across the country that it would be declared a
national disaster.

I moved to
Toronto for nursing school and ended up staying there. I worked as a nurse in
various downtown communities in various capacities. For the last 17 years I’ve
been a ‘street nurse’. I have really been what you would call a community health
nurse or a nurse practitioner but the term ‘street nurse’ was coined by a
homeless man to describe who we nurses were to him - nurses working in a
specialty nursing outreach program for people who were homeless. We saw the term
as an extraordinary compliment and the term stuck. Where there were once about 5
of us in the country, sadly, there are now well over 100.

The term
Street Nurse actually means that – there is now a nursing specialty in
this country called homeless health care, and that is obscene, it is wrong, and
it is cause for national shame.

I’ve been a
Street Nurse for 17 years – and I’ll tell you a bit about what that has meant to
me, but first let me tell you what I’m doing now and why.

Last year I
received the Atkinson Economic Justice Award from the Atkinson Foundation, which
means that I can devote more time to the issues that I feel are crucial to the
life and health of people facing this housing crisis. The heart of my work means
connecting with Canadians from all walks of life to remind them that housing is
as important to the health of this country as Medicare. I am currently based at
the Sherbourne Health Centre in downtown Toronto and I coordinate the work of
the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, which as you may know is the group that
declared homelessness a national disaster in 1998.

I work on a variety of fronts: from Hotspots and
Hate to Housing and Hope

So, in
practical terms there are four key areas.

1.The conditions that literally mean life or death if
you are homeless. I do this mostly in Toronto but the issues are relevant across
the country. This is what I call the hotspots. For example:

the
threat of infectious diseases both new and old, such as tuberculosis,
Norwalk virus, SARS, flu including the Pandemic Flu; and other outbreaks
like Legionnaire’s Disease;

new and
old pests and infestations such as lice, scabies and bedbugs;

crowded
and intolerable emergency shelter conditions that lead to the above. You
might be surprised to know that some of our shelters do not meet the UN
Standard for Refugee Camps;

high
incidence of chronic disease such as heart disease and more recently chronic
health problems such as malnutrition and hunger;

high
incidence of trauma, whether it be from accidents or violence, heat or cold;

the
emerging need for palliative care;

the
extraordinarily high death rate;

the
immediate and long term impact of homelessness on mental health;

2. The
stereotypes and their impact. This is what leads to hate. You know
like:

“people
choose to sleep outside”

“he
could get a job”

“they’re all just wino’s”

“it’s
just a big city problem”

“they’re all mentally ill”

And,
there’s the new anti-panhandling legislation and other laws criminalizing
homelessness, eg. The Safe Streets Act, Toronto’s new by-law banning
sleeping at City Hall and former civic centres.

3. The
nation-wide crisis. The crisis in housing.

I have been
looking at the extent of the homeless crisis across the country and the great
need in many communities for social housing. This means visiting select
communities and examining their problems and solutions. I have recently been
appointed to Minister Fontana’s Advisory Committee on the new housing framework
and I look forward to seeing it implemented.

4.
Building the movement for a national housing program. This is really about
building capacity and getting more help for the movement.

This year I
am particularly focusing on working to engage the labour movement, health care
workers and the community of cultural entertainers – musicians, etc. to see if
they will take on this issue as one that is important to them. Only then, when
we can build a larger popular movement or a bigger voice of concern over the
crisis, will we see political action.

One of the
reasons I was away the last 4 weeks was to work on a book that is really an oral
history of people I spent time interviewing. They are people I have been close
to, who were homeless, and extremely active in the fight for housing. I hope
this book will reach a large audience and introduce the reader to people who I
consider homeless activists – people that have been involved in fighting
homelessness and who have been homeless. Hopefully these voices will put a
human face to this tragedy.

A History Lesson

I’d like to
talk to you about the making of what we call the homeless disaster. It’s an
important Canadian history lesson that we should all know and learn from –
primarily so that we can never let it happen again.

Canadians,
beginning with Tommy Douglas, fought hard to achieve Medicare and although it
may not be perfect, for example, it is yet to include a Home Care and Pharmacare
component; at least we have a program that we can build on. Canadians care for
Medicare and we will fight to keep Medicare. Housing is a different story.

When a
housing shortage became evident at the end of World War II in Canada and our
veterans returned home, there was a significant outcry that our governments
needed to meet people’s social needs. In the period from the late 1940s to the
end of the 1960s the federal government funded about 12,000 units of largely
public housing. When I visit a new community, I’ll be touring an area and
suddenly I’ll see it and I’ll say “is that your war-time housing?”. It’s still
standing, it’s still usable and it is probably one of the most important
reminders we have that, at one point in our history, our government knew they
had to respond and produce what its citizens demanded. I bet you know where your
wartime housing is here in Sarnia. I visited it yesterday to take a picture.
It’s in terrific shape with new siding and I urge you to highlight it when you
talk about what was built in your community when you had federal investment in
housing.

Starting in
the 60s and quickly ramping up with amendments to the National Housing Act in
1973, the federal government funded more than 500,000 social housing units in
co-ops and non-profits. We averaged about 20,000 units per year, and we built it
all across the country. During those years we developed an incredible
experience building housing. Churches built non-profit housing, co-ops built
non-profit housing, cities had housing programs, unions developed housing. Sure,
we made some mistakes with huge high-rise projects that didn’t have enough green
space or services, but overall our co-op housing, our supportive housing, our
not-for-profits have done a remarkable job.

But then,
starting in 1984 and over the next decade, the federal government cut almost $2
billion from housing programs. The cuts continued until 1993 – then the Mulroney
government cancelled all new affordable housing spending in 1994.

In 1996, the
federal government (Paul Martin was Finance Minister) began downloading of
existing federal housing programs to the provinces and territories. In 1998
they made the decision to commercialize Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
(CMHC), Canada’s housing agency, and limit their role in new housing

These steps
left Canada as one of the only countries in the world without a national housing
program.

We have lost
the opportunity to build at least 300,000 social housing units, based on the
average number of units, 25,000 units/year that were funded prior to the
Mulroney cuts.

In 1998, the
federal government changed the National Housing Act, eroding the role of Canada
Mortgage and Housing Corporation in developing new affordable housing and
turning it into a “profit centre” by increasing mortgage insurance fees and
cutting programs.

Only in Canada

Prof. Jean
Wolfe of McGill University wrote:

“It is only
in Canada that the national government has, except for CMHC loans, withdrawn
from social housing. The rush to get out of managing existing projects and
building new, low-income housing has taken advocates by surprise. It was never
imagined that a system that has taken 50 years to build-up could be dismantled
so rapidly. Social housing in Canada now consists of a checker-board of 12
provincial and territorial policies, and innumerable local policies. It is truly
post-modern.”

These federal
actions were followed by similar reductions, cancellation and downloading by
most provinces and territories.

Here in Ontario

Here in
Ontario in 1995, the Mike Harris government cancelled 17,000 social housing
units that had already been approved for development. Those units could have
housed 40,000 people.

Here in
Ontario in 1995, the same government cut by almost one-quarter, the
shelter-allowance component for welfare recipients.

Here in
Ontario in 1998, housing was downloaded to municipalities.

Here in
Ontario in the 1990s there were major cuts to provincial housing programs.
There were similar patterns across the country.

So, we should
not have been surprised when we saw the following, and as a nurse, in Toronto, I
had a particular vantage point.

New and
scared faces in drop-in centres and shelters. People who had never thought
they would be homeless. A rise in economic evictions.

Roads
out and roads in. When things got tight and stressful in other communities
for people who needed additional social services, the road usually led out
of the small town and into the big city where there were more resources.

More
visible ‘street homelessness’ and encampments like squats and tent cities.

Worsening overall health, including mental health.

Escalating death rate.

Homelessness is a National Disaster

Disasters are
not limited to earthquakes, ice storms or floods. When significant numbers are
affected (1.7 million Canadians suffering an affordability crisis alone and an
estimated 250,000 using emergency shelters in a year), when people remain in
shelters for more than a few months – when the expectation becomes years, when
old diseases like tuberculosis come back to haunt, when bedbug infestations
become a public health hazard, and when you are 4x more likely to die if you are
homeless, then it’s time to call things for what they are.

In 1998 we
formed the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and we declared homelessness a
national disaster – national. 400 organizations from across the country endorsed
our declaration. City councils across the country including Toronto, Ottawa, and
Vancouver passed motions to this effect. The Big City Mayors Caucus of the
Federation of Canadian Municipalities did the same. That day, November 22 is now
marked as National Housing Day across the country.

Homelessness
is no longer invisible nor can it be ignored, although the powers that be have
been procrastinating as long as they can, avoiding the obvious solution.

Since
declaring Homelessness a National Disaster there have been victories:

·In
1999 Prime Minister Chrétien appointed a Minister Responsible for Homelessness –
the first time in Canada, maybe a first for the world, which says a lot about
our problem. Fortunately, now we have in name at least, a Minister of Housing,
Minister Joe Fontana and not a Minister Responsible for Homelessness.

·Two
strong national networks have been formed: the National Housing and Homelessness
Network and the National Coalition on Housing and Homelessness.

·MacLean’s
reported that 85% of Canadians agreed with increased spending on homelessness
and other indicators suggest that Canadians are very aware that the problem is
no longer a big city problem and that solutions require senior government
involvement not simply charity.

·In
1999 the federal government announced its homelessness strategy and SCPI
(Supporting Community Partnership Initiative) funding which was renewed in 2003
for another 3 years. We hope it will be renewed yet again.

·In
November 2001, the federal government announced its Affordable Housing Framework
Agreement ($680 million over years). In 2003 the federal government added $320
million bringing the total to $1 billion. The first new federal money since
housing was slashed 10 years earlier.

·In
June 2003 the TD Bank issued an economics report on affordable housing stating
it was “one of Canada’s most pressing public policy issues.”

·The
last federal budget contained zero $ for housing but the Layton-Martin budget =
$1.6 billion for affordable housing over 2 years (still to be spent). C-48 the
Budget Bill has still to this date not delivered. The federal government is
delaying the rollout of the monies until March 2006, the end of the fiscal year,
depending on if there is a surplus.

Today’s reality in Ontario

Since signing
the Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) housing agreement in 2001, Ontario has
promised a total of 46,332 units and delivered only 63. You might be surprised
by these numbers because there have been something like 11 Ontario announcements
with photo ops and ministers signing agreements. There have been 336 FPT
announcements since 2001!. However, announcements of housing allocations are not
the same as actual allotments for those units.

Until
recently Ontario had 3 ministers with responsibility for housing. Do you know
who they were? Minister Pupatello is Minister of Community Services and had the
homeless, shelters and rent supplement file. Minister Caplan was Minister of
Public Infrastructure and had the new affordable housing file. Minister
Gerretsen is Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. He had part of the new
housing file, plus rent regulation/tenant protection and social housing. Now
housing finally has been simplified and its Minister Gerretsen’s portfolio.

So, why so
few new units of housing in Ontario?

Primarily,
because the Ontario government since the 2001 signing of the FPT has been
reluctant to match the federal dollars. Ontario’s not alone, but is perhaps the
stingiest. Other provinces have also cut their housing spending. Across the
country, it’s only Quebec that has been close to meeting its targets.

Ontario’s
recent promise of 400 rent supplements in the private market in Toronto only
yielded an actual number of 40 – a hint of how the reliance on the private
sector does not create housing.

Today’s reality in Sarnia?

In Where’s
Home 2004 (by the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association and the Co-operative
Housing Federation of Canada – Ontario Region) there is good news and bad news
on Sarnia.

The good
news: your vacancy rates have increased. In 2003 they were 6.1%.

The bad news:
in 2000 – 46% of tenants paid more than 30% of their income on shelter and 22%
paid more than 50%. So, almost half of tenants in Sarnia have an affordability
problem.

You’re not
building. From 1999 – 2003 an average of 33 rental units were added annually.
Your rental demand is expected to exceed supply.

You have been
promised 25 new units and 40 housing allowances by the province. There is no
news yet on those allocations and I urge you to speak out to ensure those
promises are kept.

What can you do in Sarnia-Lambton?

Well, as I
suggest what you can do, it’s important to keep in mind how to involve your
local representatives.

Your MP is
Liberal Roger Gallaway and he’s been in Ottawa representing you since 1993 – if
you recall that was the last year the federal government allocated new dollars
for affordable housing. Mr. Galloway’s web-site says he is well known nationally
as an advocate for the needs of children. His other legislative interests
include the oil and petrochemical business, regulated industries, consumer
protection law and parliamentary reform. Mr. Gallaway is an original member of
the Parliamentary True Grit Band and sometime serious musician. He has appeared
in galas for the International Symphony as well as being the narrator for a
“Child’s Introduction to the Symphony”.

Your MPP is
Liberal Caroline DiCocco and she is Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of
Children and Youth Services. Under ‘Hot Topics’ on her web site there was a lot
of attention to environmental challenges – which is good and her web site
certainly indicates she is responsive to community needs.

Since, I
learned today that some of your homeless families with children are forced to
use the motel system here for emergency shelter and only for a maximum of 30
days I think both of your elected reps should be invited to see first hand what
that involves.

So, what can
you do in Sarnia-Lambton?

Expose
your problem as you are doing this week and talk about related issues. For
example, you should be alarmed at layoffs and job loss in your community and
labour should be an obvious ally in any work you do to create housing
solutions. Consider arranging new and creative ways that you can invite the
media, prominent community leaders and politicians to view first hand both
your problems and your solutions.

Who are
your heroes and heroines – your local stars and how can they help raise the
profile of your housing/homelessness issues. Well, once again, I did do some
research and learned that a lot of famous people come from here. Golfer Mike
Weir, musician Kim Mitchell, film director Patricia Rozema. Who else? How
can you engage them?

Encourage your local level of government to create a municipal/regional
strategy that includes ending homelessness and setting new housing or rehab
targets. Yes, they’ll need money from senior levels of government, but it is
critical that your local leaders are in the plan.

Can
your organization order the 1% solution buttons?

Can
this symposium at the end of the day pass a motion that you could send to
your MP or MPP or regional government?

I
promise you I will write Minister Fontana about my concerns at what I have
seen in my visit which have included: no adult shelter in the entire county,
reliance on motels for shelter, huge geographic challenges for travel for
low-income people, no transitional housing units, high food bank use, no
detox or treatment centre, homeless adults and families forced out of the
community because of a basic lack of services. I urge you to invite the
Minister to your community for a tour that could be hosted by your Warden
and County Mayors to see this first hand.

And
lastly, I would suggest you look at whether your community really should
consider continuing with its reliance on motel beds for emergency shelter or
whether it’s time you found a more satisfactory option. You have the luxury
of land here, you have the luxury of a vacancy rate and houses that could be
bought up cheap. There is money in this community, churches that are
downsizing, corporations and unions that sound generous and surely there are
ways you can take a new look at the use of these resources rather than a
crummy motel room or worse, the loss of valuable community members to
another community.

In the last
24 hours I’ve seen a glimpse of the housing/homeless issues right here in Sarnia-Lambton.
There is a national housing movement and we need to bring the issues in Sarnia-Lambton
to the forefront of that movement but we will need your help and your voice
joining us. I’ve been pleased to see how organized and cooperative your work is
here and I wish you luck in the future.